‘Walter Mitty’ is family-fun...

Pat Tyrer is a writer and associate professor of American literature at West Texas A&M University

Published 9:14 am, Saturday, January 11, 2014

When I was a teenager, babysitting for the neighbors, I remember watching old movies after my charges were asleep and bedded down. One of those films starred Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” The film came out in 1947 (before I was born) and was in color, but the television set I was watching only played black and white. Television, I’m hesitant to write, “back then” was mostly black and white and went off the air a little after midnight. I didn’t care for Kaye’s version of Walter Mitty which seemed silly and overplayed. I’d read the short story by James Thurber in junior high and felt that Kaye had made Walter look dim-witted instead of the soft-hearted dreamer that I’d remembered from Thurber’s story. So when the 2013 version of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” starring comedian Ben Stiller as Mitty and Kristen Wiig as his love interest, Cheryl Melhoff, was released, I was in no hurry to see the film. Fortunate for me, it happened to be one of the few films I hadn’t seen, and I was in the mood for a movie. I’m glad I went.

The film begins much as the Kaye version with Walter going through dream-like periods his sister, Odess (Kathryn Hahn) refers to as his “zoning out.” Stiller’s characterization of Walter is of a thoughtful, considerate man who escapes his routine life dreaming of himself in one exciting adventure after another. He shows genuine concern for his sister and delight in the birthday cake made by his mother, Edna, played charmingly by Shirley MacLaine. Walter is employed by Look magazine supposedly in its final days as a print journal. The actual magazine folded in 1971 after a thirty-four year run beginning in 1937. I remember Look because of its size (as big as today’s coffee table books) and its astounding photographs and covers and because it was published in Des Moines, about eleven miles from where I grew up and where we had to go to see a movie when I was a teenager. In this new film, Walter is Look’s negative editor meaning that he’s in charge of receiving and cataloging the photo negatives as they arrive from photographers in the field. When he receives a personal message from Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn), his favorite photographer, he’s excited to submit the frame for Look’s final cover. The problem is that he cannot locate the designated frame, and he is unable to reach O’Connell who is in the field. The adventure begins when Walter steps out of his mundane life to take on the challenge of locating O’Connell and retrieving a copy of the negative. His journey takes him on the adventure of a lifetime where he travels by helicopter, boat, and skateboard, becoming the adventurer he’d always dreamed of being.

This adaptation of Thurber’s story develops the character of Walter Mitty beyond the short story, yet maintains the sympathetic character created by Thurber. Stiller characterizes Walter as genuine, warm-hearted, and somewhat of an “every man” who casts caution aside and accepts a challenge for which its success is uncertain. Even husband Steve who “poo poo’d” the first 15 minutes of the film, came around in the end to declare it fun and entertaining. If you’re a regular movie-goer, I recommend seeing it; if you’re not one to sit in the theater, then keep an eye out for the DVD version—this is one worth renting, and perhaps best of all, it’s devoid of sex, violence, and foul language—it’s family friendly. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is rated PG for some crude comments, language and aggressive action, with a runtime of 114 minutes.